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Telkom unveils post-paid tariff for subscribers

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A man walks past Orange shop on Koinange Street in Nairobi. On-net and off-net calls will be charged at Sh2 and Sh3 respectively. PHOTO | FILE

Telkom Kenya has introduced a postpaid tariff that will see its subscribers pay a minimum of either Sh1,000 or Sh3,000 monthly for bundled talk-time, data and text messages.

The move comes just weeks after rival Safaricom hinted that it would not terminate a similar calling plan dubbed Karibu postpaid service.

Previously Orange only offered the postpaid tariff to corporate clients, and the introduction of the plan targeting individual customers is seen as an effort to boost its revenue by reaching out to subscribers who have a regular income but want to manage their monthly telephone bills.

The tariff plan known as Orange Ongea requires subscribers opting for the Sh1,000 monthly plan to pay Sh2,000 as deposit while those signing up for the Sh3,000 are charged Sh6,000.

On-net and off-net calls will be charged at Sh2 and Sh3 respectively, while on-net and off-net SMS will be charged at Sh0.5 and Sh1 respectively.

Data per megabyte will cost Sh3 on the Sh1,000 Plan and Sh2 on the Sh3,000 plan. International calls and SMS are also included in the bundle.

“Orange continues to better its products and service offering to its customers as we continue with our customer acquisition and retention strategy,” said Telkom Kenya chief executive Vincent Lobry in a statement.

Customers will be automatically converted to the ordinary Orange pre-paid tariff once they exhaust their bundles and will be required to top-up to continue using the Orange network.

Safaricom currently offers three personal post-pay plans — Advantage Postpay, and the two Karibu tariff plans: postpay Sh1,000 and postpay Sh2,500.

READ: Safaricom hits Telkom Kenya with new landline call rates ad

Customers on the tariff pay either Sh1,000 or Sh2,500 per month for a mix of talk time and text messages (for use within and outside Safaricom’s network) as well as data bundles.

For Sh1,000 per month, a subscriber gets 900 minutes talk time for on-net calls, 100 minutes for off-net calls as well as 100 megabytes of data and 100 on-net SMSes.

For Sh2,500 a month, subscribers get 2,200 minutes for Safaricom to Safaricom calls, 300 minutes to rival networks, 250 megabytes of data and 250 on-net text messages.

In the latest industry regulator filings for July-September 2014, Orange improved its market share to 4.4 per cent up from 4.0 per cent registered during the last quarter. Its voice traffic also increased to 356 million minutes from 294 million minutes.

During the period under review, Safaricom’s traffic increased to 6.0 billion minutes from 5.8 billion minutes recorded during the last quarter.

However, its market share dropped by 3.1 percentage points to register 75.6 per cent share from 78.7 per cent share posted during the last quarter.